One of the things you first think of when considering the possibility of full-time RVing is how will I get my mail? A lot of us are fairly tech-savvy enough that we already have an email account and know how to check our bank accounts online. Heck, many of us already pay most, if not all of our bills online or have them come out automatically. If you do this you have already won half the battle.
But what about those things like tax statements, car registrations and (heaven forbid) the folks that simply refuse to move into the modern world and ONLY do things by snail mail? How do you deal with that? It’s not as hard as you think. Please know, there are several other considerations before just picking a mail service. You need to establish where you want your residency which is required for health insurance, auto insurance, taxes, etc. Read The Best States for Full-time RVer Domiciles to help with that in an article written by Rene Agredano for RV Life, one of the many memberships available for RVers.
Of course, you can always ask family if you can send important mail to them so they can forward to you, or you can rely on the US Mail forwarding service and there are many others as well. We didn’t want to do that and since we sold our house, we chose to establish residency in a state where we knew we would travel to often.
We chose Texas as our new home state because I have family there and (read the article highlighted above) for several other reasons – like NO STATE TAX! For our mail we used a well-established group called Escapees RV Mail Service. Check out their website as they offer this service and much more. The mail works pretty simple. You pay an annual fee – rates depend on what type of services you desire – Escapees gives you a street address and you change your mailing address with the US Postal Service.
That’s it! All your physical mail will go to your new “street” address. Package services are also received such as FedEx, Amazon or UPS, and when a package is received you will get an email from Escapees letting you know that it has arrived.
After deciding what type of service (explained on the above link) you decide how much postage you want to put on your account to be used when Escapees forwards your mail. You can add to this account at any time. Currently, we use the Category A service and it has worked fine. If you wish, you can add things like scanning and sorting. All accounts offer online management. Finally, decide how often you want your mail forwarded to your present location. Call or email Escapees and let them know when you want them to ship your mail and the address where they should ship it. Typically they will send it by FedEx, so you will have it in a few days. If it is something where time is of the essence, just let them know and they are happy to overnight it as well. It works really well.
A few things to keep in mind whether you use Escapees Mail Service or one of the many other services:
- Check with the campground where your mail will be delivered to make sure it is ok
- Be sure you have funds in your account for forwarding mail
- Be sure to give Escapees the correct address where your mail will be forwarded
- Remember, many of the places we camp are remote, so if the mail SHOULD be there in two days – it COULD take three or four, especially if it involves a weekend or holiday.
*TIP – Always check with the campground that it is ok to have mail or packages delivered there. DON’T just assume it is ok. They may not have the staff to handle your request or may not want the responsibility of receiving someone else’s mail or packages. We have found (so far) that for every campground we have asked, they were happy to oblige, but we’ve read stories of folks being asked to leave the campground because they received a package from Fedex. SO ALWAYS check first, to be safe.
**Other services may differ from Escapees, so we encourage you to make sure you understand the service you choose. This is our opinion based on what we have experienced. No compensation of any type has been received for writing this article.
Sharing the View from Here 